


my pain will range from up, down, and sideways

by sepiapages



Series: scribbles [1]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anxiety, Existential Crisis, Self-Harm, i guess, idk - Freeform, sorry - Freeform, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:59:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6684697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepiapages/pseuds/sepiapages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So I guess I’m jumping on the bandwagon and posting vent fics here too. Okay. Sorry about that. Major triggers for pretty much every mental health stuff, but specifically self-harm, eating disorders, and suicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my pain will range from up, down, and sideways

Josh really didn’t know what to think of himself. What he was doing. The hardest part of it all was that he really wasn’t ignorant. He _knew_ what he was doing. (Mostly.) (Mostly?) He understood what other people did and he understood why they did it.

So why did _he_ do it?

Curiosity? If he were completely honest, that was the only logical explanation. He hated himself for it.

What did it do for others? Obviously there was some sort of benefit people were getting from it. No, not from “it” because it wasn’t the same thing. Josh wasn’t cutting—there was no razor in his hand drawing vicious red lines from beneath the skin to the surface. Josh wasn’t bulimic—there were no hidden sessions of stuffing himself before ridding his body of what he’d just given it. Josh wasn’t suicidal—there were no pills in his hand, no gun to his head, no noose around his neck. He didn’t want to die. (What good would that do? Where would he go? What about the things he’s done?) That wasn’t why he did it.

What _was_ he doing?

 _You’re smarter than this!_ He scolds himself every time he even thinks about it. _You know what you’re doing. Stop it with the denial, you pathetic little shit. You broke your promise. How could you break your promise? Maybe you’re not even worth love at this point. At least for a while._

Josh was sitting on the bathroom floor, his hands trembling and his breath uneven. He clenched and unclenched his fists, digging his knuckles into his thighs. His breath hissed between his teeth as he fought tears.

Whispering. He was whispering to himself. Someone else should be telling him these things, but someone else wasn’t here, and he was smarter than this. He couldn’t depend on anyone else for his own… solidarity. Functionality. _Sanity_. They had their own problems to deal with, and they couldn’t fix him any better than he could fix the one he loved. (No matter how many times he’s tried.)

No one could fix anyone. Josh was smarter than this. He knew the logic of what people did. It didn’t make sense. There was no reason to it. But now _he_ didn’t make sense. God, he hated himself, but no, he didn’t, because that would be too harsh and he wasn’t _that_ depressed, and he wasn’t anxious enough to have panic attacks in the middle of a busy room. He just got sad and he just got uncomfortable and that was that.

He wasn’t _enough_ of anything.

But what was this? What was he doing?

Whatever it was, it didn't matter because Josh was _fine_. **_Josh was fine._**

 

Fine?

 

The empty stomach growling at him said otherwise.

The edge of a pair of scissors dragging up his forearm said otherwise.

His ragged, shaky breath and desperate whispering and unfallen tears said otherwise.

  
Josh wasn't fine. But if he wasn't, then what was he?


End file.
